I wanted so bad to fire this thing up and try and tackle a few areas just to get in the swing again before doing the Old Hunters...just couldn't do it. Not certain why but maybe it was getting smacked around by one of those "Bag Dudes" or failing again with one of those bosses...but I really need to; I miss that atmosphere.

I feel the same. I really love the game and the world they have created, but this game requires the player to be totally focused and in the mood for a session of tough gaming. I got pretty far into this game, but then new game after new game got released that put it on the back burner. As soon as i finished Mad Max, MGS got released. As i am close to the end of everything on that we now have Fallout 4 and Just Cause 3 (which is anything is judged by their previous iterations means that i will lose at least 500 hours between those two games alone). I love a challenge in games, but with these distractions i am more focused on games i can pick up and play for shorter periods of time. I will finally get back to this in 2016.

I feel the same. I really love the game and the world they have created, but this game requires the player to be totally focused and in the mood for a session of tough gaming. I got pretty far into this game, but then new game after new game got released that put it on the back burner. As soon as i finished Mad Max, MGS got released. As i am close to the end of everything on that we now have Fallout 4 and Just Cause 3 (which is anything is judged by their previous iterations means that i will lose at least 500 hours between those two games alone). I love a challenge in games, but with these distractions i am more focused on games i can pick up and play for shorter periods of time. I will finally get back to this in 2016.

This! I got about halfway through the story and loved it how. However, I got into other games and still haven't went back.

Same boat. While I like Bloodborne better than the other games I've played, it's on the back burner for now. Fallout 4 is just interesting enough to keep me going, Rise of the Tomb Raider is next in the queue.

I also have MGS V which I'm finding to be more of a chore than fun so I may just cut my losses there. And thankfully I'm pretty sick of sandbox games so Just Cause 3 is off my radar.

FWIW...The 2015 Video Game Awards are on tonight from LA and Bloodborne is in three categories including Game of the Year. The official site is here and they have trailers for all the nominees. The one they have for Bloodborne is "Cut You Down / The Hunt Begins"...and as we know it's a good one.

This game is maddening to me. If it wasn't for slop's suggestion in the January games thread to run past everyone to the first boss so you could actually level up, I think i'd have just thrown this in my junk pile pretty quickly

After doing what he said, i'm starting to grind a little bit in hopes of making it a little bit easier. Before that, dying dozens of times and starting back at the same point for an hour or two with little idea of what to do was one of the worst gaming experiences i've had, no hyperbole. The controls still feel clunky, with both attacks and rolls/dodging feeling imprecise. The frame rate kind of bugs me too, as is getting thrown into a world without any narrative behind it.

That said! Finally getting a hang of combat, the attacks, and movement. Everyone seems to say it gets significantly better, so i'm going to stick with it. I know people praise the difficulty of these games and that there's no hand holding, but it doesn't really seem like my type of thing... so far.

Yeah, I already looked up some walkthroughs last night and it helped with some tips. I'm reading through the thread now to get some more, like buying armor or whatever which I didn't think about. Not to continue my bitch fest, but i'm also not a big fan of the UI in the game

Yeah, the game can be pretty obtuse in what it expects from the player. While it can be maddening, I think that's their intent, and also part of the fun. I mostly like the purity of design, it's sense of dicovery; the way the world and story flow out in a way that can only be done in videogames. So many games ape movies in the way they lay out their world and story, but the way Miyazaki does it here can only be done in videogames. The "gameplay" is just gravy.

I wish I could say their design resulted in actual fun for me After grinding a little, the Cleric Beast was still destroying me so I wandered around and ended up in the Aqueduct, got to Father Gascoigne and able to defeat him. Grinded a little more and went back to kill the Cleric Beast last night too. It's a little bit better now that my character can actually survive a little longer, but i'm still not really feeling it. It's interesting enough to keep playing but I still struggle a bit with the controls and camera and as someone that hates grinding I dread having to do that more.

That's interesting, because Father G is way tougher than Cleric Beast.

That's funny. With Father G, I basically got him to stand next to the staircase on the ground where i was on the stairs a few steps up and was able to attack and dodge pretty easily and he couldn't really hit me. I think the trouble I had with the Cleric Beast was I'm still fighting the controls, where I often roll/dodge in to a weird camera angle.

That's funny. With Father G, I basically got him to stand next to the staircase on the ground where i was on the stairs a few steps up and was able to attack and dodge pretty easily and he couldn't really hit me. I think the trouble I had with the Cleric Beast was I'm still fighting the controls, where I often roll/dodge in to a weird camera angle.

FYI, locking the camera on the boss helps in most of the fights. Sometimes not though.

Cleric Beast was the only time I had issues with the camera in the game, it really was an odd first boss, glad he's optional. I also found Father G much easier.

I didn't need to grind much to finish the game, so YMMV there. I just see it more like Castlevania:SOTN, where the enemies are all there but you can fly past them, or stop, kill them and power up a little. I beat that game without too much grind initially as well.

Slowly plodding along, at Vicar Amelia after inadvertently finding what appears to be a bunch of optional areas. I had no idea how the mechanic of this Old Hunter Henriett worked and used all my insight having her appear. Can't say i'm blown away by anything in the game, but compelled enough to keep at it

Ugh, I'm seriously struggling to beat Vicar Amelia on New Game Plus. I see they added the NPC Old Hunters which is cool, but the damn guards are about 20 times harder than they were on regular mode. I didn't do any grinding in the regular game, and now I have to just to catch up -- thankfully it takes maybe 10 minutes to get 100,000 blood echoes.

Fumanstan: Did you already beat Blood Starved Beast or did you just go straight to Vicar Amelia? (Not that it matters, just curious).

Ugh, I'm seriously struggling to beat Vicar Amelia on New Game Plus. I see they added the NPC Old Hunters which is cool, but the damn guards are about 20 times harder than they were on regular mode. I didn't do any grinding in the regular game, and now I have to just to catch up -- thankfully it takes maybe 10 minutes to get 100,000 blood echoes.

Fumanstan: Did you already beat Blood Starved Beast or did you just go straight to Vicar Amelia? (Not that it matters, just curious).

When I was stuck on Vicar Amelia, I went and grinded along with basically doing all the optional areas first. So I defeated Blood Starved Beast and The Witch of Hemwick first - and just over the weekend I finally defeated Amelia and Darkbeast Paarl, but I feel like i've grinded a lot making the fights a lot easier. I'm in the Forbidden Woods now.

Gotcha, yeah grinding does help out a lot but I was never a fan. I gotta finish off Amelia to activate the DLC.

I hate grinding, but i'm determined to finish this game one way or another. It helped that I felt like there were a few areas that were easy to earn a lot of blood echoes and kind of figured out the weapon upgrade stuff. My level is in the 60's right now, makes me wonder what's "normal" for others around where I am. Heh.

I hate grinding, but i'm determined to finish this game one way or another. It helped that I felt like there were a few areas that were easy to earn a lot of blood echoes and kind of figured out the weapon upgrade stuff. My level is in the 60's right now, makes me wonder what's "normal" for others around where I am. Heh.

I beat the game on level 80 I think, and did a bit of grinding in and after the Forbidden Woods when I found out how Arcane worked, I'm 90 now. I should also note that I accidentally skipped two pretty substantial parts of the game.

Thankfully once you have multiple Moon runes and are in New Game Plus, you get like 5,000 - 9,000 on a lot of standard enemies.